Go to Mass, Not to the Woods, Every Sunday
9
Go to Mass, Not to the Woods, Every Sunday
Go to Mass, Not to the Woods, Every Sunday
Because we are bodily and spiritual beings,
we must be religious too.
Question 9
Why can’t we just be spiritual but not religious?
Thomas answers that . . .
“A man is said to be religious from ‘religio,’ because he often ponders over, and, as it were, reads again (religit), the things which pertain to worship. . . . Or again, religion may be derived from ‘religare,’ (to bind together) wherefore Augustine says (Of True Religion, 55): ‘May religion bind us to the one Almighty God.’ ”
— Summa Theologica II-II, 81, 1
Keeping the Lord’s Day Holy
The idea that we can, and indeed, should, be “spiritual but not religious” has become so popular in recent decades that it has acquired its own acronym (SBNR), or indeed, two of them if we include SBNA, “spiritual but not affiliated.” The gist of the notion is an emphasis on the interior, spiritual experience of the individual, without the ostensibly unnecessary baggage of the exterior, communal, institutional dimensions of formal religion. Why go to church, “spiritual” people ask, when one can go to the woods and commune directly with God, or perhaps with the “god” who is one’s own self?
Now, as with so many errors, there are some grains of truth here. We should indeed grow in our awareness of the importance of the spiritual, rather than becoming mired in the rampant materialism and consumerism so centered on worldly desires. In this sense, the idea bears a faint resemblance to our second life lesson, that we should focus the most on the things that matter the most, and to our sixth life lesson, that we should love what is highest within ourselves. Further, the man or woman who seeks God in the woods will indeed find Him there in some very important ways. As St. Thomas explains:
God is in all things by His power inasmuch as all things are subject to his power: He is by His presence in all things, as all things are bare and open to His eyes; He is in all things by His essence, inasmuch as He is present to all as the cause of their being. (I, 8, 3, emphasis added)
As we read in Scripture: “Do I not fill heaven and earth? says the Lord” (Jer. 23:24). What we see in the woods or in the stars does indeed tell us something about God, for those who have eyes to see and ears to listen: “For from the greatness and beauty of created things comes a corresponding perception of their Creator” (Wisd. 13:5). Further, “the heavens are telling of the glory of God; and the firmament proclaims his handiwork” (Ps. 19:1). This is why Thomas’s teacher St. Albert would joyously exclaim as both scientist and theologian: “The whole world is theology for us because the heavens proclaim the glory of God.”83
So, if you are inclined to praise God in the woods on Sunday, please, by all means do so — put in a good word for me if you think of it — but please do so before or after Mass.84 And here’s why.
St. Thomas went to great lengths to show us that our natural reason, starting with the simple evidence of our senses — the fact that things move or change, act as causes and are acted upon as effects, exist, have beauty, goodness, and order — can indeed lead us through incontrovertibly sound reasoning to the existence of the unmoved mover, first cause, necessarily existent, totally beautiful, good, and purposeful Being who is God.85 Therefore, even through the power of reason alone, we should recognize that nature, however grand and beautiful, let alone our own souls, is not worthy of worship, but should point us to God alone, who is worthy of worship, for everything in the universe depends for its very creation and sustained existence on the power and love of God. God is not the universe, as pantheists proclaim, and, as G. K. Chesterton has reminded us, strictly speaking, nature is not our mother, but our sister. We owe her honor and proper stewardship, but not the worship due only to God.
According to St. Thomas, what we can know about God through reason alone is extremely valuable, though quite limited. We can know, for example, that He exists, that He is utterly simple (not composed of parts), perfect, infinite, immutable (unchangeable), one (a unity), supremely good and loving, immense (everywhere through essence, presence, and power), and eternal (I, 1-26). These reasoned conclusions, however, are but praeambula fidei, “preambles of faith,” that “remove obstacles to faith, by showing that what faith proposes is not impossible” (II-II, 2, 10).
Indeed, they removed such obstacles for me after twenty-five years of atheism, having been influenced by atheistic philosophers who had not grasped the philosophical and theological lessons of St. Thomas. Thomas showed, like no one before him or since, how not only reason, but faith is quite reasonable, never contradicting reason, but through the special revelation of God, the source and summit of Truth, transcending its human limitations in the most important ways.86
To make a very long story short, one of the most profound “Ahas!” to hit me after moving from the “god of the philosophers” provable by those preambles to the “God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob” (Exod. 3:15; Acts 7:32) was reading Thomas’s elegant, extensive, metaphysically astute proofs of the existence of God, built upon but transcending the foundations of Aristotle, the Father of Logic, that show how in God and God alone in all the universe, essence and existence, what He is and that He is must be one. This cannot be said of you or of me, or of anything else that exists. I don’t know your age, but I hadn’t even begun forming in my mother’s womb until 1960. The universe obviously existed quite a long time without me, but even the universe could not have created or sustained itself unless through the act of a Being who is completely necessary.
Now, as for the “Aha!”: I also found in Thomas’s arguments (in fact, he begins the On the Contrary section of I, 2, 3 with it), the tersest of all summaries of the argument — in the words of God Himself! When Moses asked God what he should call Him, God responded, “I am who am” (Exod. 3:14).
How amazing that what some would consider an ancient, simple, philosophically unsophisticated, superstitious desert people received from God the gist of this most profound argument in less than a handful of words. Indeed, before identifying Himself as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, God instructed Moses: “Say this to the people of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you’ ” (Exod. 3:14).
Well, “I AM,” of course, had much more to tell Moses through His special revelation in the burning bush. Indeed, they include what we might call the most profound, important, and famous, ten “life lessons” of them all. I refer to the Ten Commandments, of course. Let’s note that the first three pertain directly to man’s relationship with God, and the other seven with man’s relationship to himself and his neighbor. The first commandment bids us to honor God alone and no false idols, the second bids us not to use God’s name in vain, and the third bids us to keep Holy the Sabbath Day.87 Those first three are foremost and are interrelated, and the third directly prescribes the subject matter of this chapter’s life lesson from St. Thomas Aquinas.
The Catholic Church, established by the Son of God and built upon the “rock” of the first pope, St. Peter (Matt.16:18), has provided the most exalted of all ways to keep holy the Lord’s Day in the form of the Holy Mass. We must strive to conquer sins and build virtues to appreciate fully this great gift, and to enjoy fully the effects of the sacrament it presents us, for in the Mass, God is present to us in the most special of all ways, in a more profound, intimate, and mystical way than even through His eternal presence, essence, and power. For now, let’s turn our eyes toward the kinds of sins that turn our eyes away from God for the sake of infinitely lesser goods.
A Sin That May Be Spiritual,
but Certainly Not Religious
We already encountered one major sin that opposes this chapter’s life lesson, as a sin opposing the greatest of all commandments: to love God with all that we are. Thomas made clear: “Sloth is not an aversion of the mind from any spiritual good, but from the Divine good, to which the mind is obliged to adhere” (II-II, 35, 3). When sloth turns our minds away from God, it also gets busy turning our actions away from God, including the neglect of specific acts that God bids us to do: “Sloth is opposed to the precept about hallowing the Sabbath Day. For this precept, in so far as it is a moral precept, implicitly commands the mind to rest in God; and sorrow about the Divine good is contrary thereto” (ibid.). If we willingly fail to do honor to God in Mass on Sundays in keeping with the Catholic Church’s teaching that it is a mortal sin in violation of the third commandment, then we know there is a sloth lurking lazily in our souls, and we need to take action to move it out, slowly, but surely!
Ignorance is another possible source of sin, when we lack knowledge regarding things every person is obliged to know. Thomas elaborates: “All are bound in common to know the articles of faith, and the universal principles of right” (I-II, 76, 2). If we fail to attend Sunday Mass because we have not bothered to learn the Church’s teaching on how it relates to the third commandment, we have culpably sinned through ignorance. Perhaps, too, those who have not learned the difference between the woods and the church, which makes all the difference in the world — namely, the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist at Mass — have been negligent in learning the fundamentals of their Faith. Culpable, too, are ordained clerics who do not strive to dispel such ignorance in their own parishioners by explaining the Real Presence and displaying their awe in its reality through the reverent manner in which Mass is said.
Among modern errors that contribute to the “spiritual but not religious” misconception are the stated or implicit pantheism that sees God in everything in such a way that it does not distinguish creation from the Creator and the modernism that emphasizes religion as merely a matter of personal feeling or experience, rather than objective facts and the revealed truths of the Faith.
The Virtue of Being Religious
and Not Merely Spiritual
To truly honor God in ways He intended, we must cultivate in our souls the virtue of religion. It is quite telling that in the “On the contrary” section of his first of eight articles on the virtue of religion, Thomas cites a non-Christian source, the pagan Roman philosopher, Marcus Tullius Cicero: “Tully says (Rhetoric 2, 53) that religion consists in offering service and ceremonial rites to a superior nature that men call divine” (II-II, 81, 1). This tells us that engrained in our human nature is the tendency to reason our way to the existence of some kind of divine being (or beings) and that such a being or beings are worthy of our worship and service. Of course, Thomas also calls on the testimony of Scripture and the Church Fathers, including St. Augustine, to answer fully this first question of II-II, 81, on whether the virtue of religion directs man to God alone. Thomas ultimately answers this question with a resounding yes and provides all kinds of illumination along the way, shining light in particular on the idea of latria.
An objection in the first article notes that latria pertains to religion. Augustine said that latria means “service,” and we are bound by charity to serve not only God but also our neighbor (see Gal. 5:13). Therefore, religion is also directed toward one’s neighbor. Thomas responds, however, as follows:
Since servant implies relation to a lord, wherever there is a special kind of lordship there must needs be a special kind of service. Now it is evident that lordship belongs to God in a special and singular way, because He made all things and has supreme dominion over all. Consequently a special kind of service is due to Him, which is known as latria in Greek; and therefore it belongs to religion. (II-II, 81, 1)
In sum, we owe to God a special kind of service we owe to no other being in the universe, or to the entire universe itself, and this we call latria, more commonly known today as worship or adoration. Recall, if you will, that in our treatment of justice, we briefly touched on religion. Thomas considered religion just a part of the cardinal virtue of justice because we can never exercise complete justice to God in returning to Him his due in equal measure: we owe Him everything that we are, including our very existence! Of course, God is quite aware of this situation and asks of us only what we are able to give back to Him, with the aid of His divine assistance! Because religion’s object or end is God, though it is not one of the four cardinal moral virtues, “religion excels among the moral virtues,” being the highest and most important among them. Further, “the precepts pertaining to religion are given precedence (Exod. 20) as being of greatest importance. . . . Therefore religion is the chief of the moral virtues” (II-II, 81, 6). The first through third commandments, directed toward God, command exercise of the virtue of religion.
Obviously, then, we would be especially wise to try to dispel any sinful ignorance within us by learning how to develop the virtue of religion in our souls. Of course, Thomas is always most happy to guide us along the way.
Recall, if you will, that our quotation that started this chapter noted that religion derives from the Latin word relegit, “to read again.” St. Augustine noted religion’s relation to the Latin word religare, “to bind together.” St. Thomas notes that, in practicing the virtue of religion, we do read again and again the Scriptures and ponder again and again divine truths. The acts of religion confirm our bond to God. Indeed, he points out how both aspects of religion are made clear in the lives of the religious who are formally consecrated to God. Yet the religious and Christian laity alike are expected to develop the virtue of religion.
Let’s remember that “a virtue is that which makes its possessor good, and his acts good likewise” (II-II, 81, 3). The virtue of religion then, entails both interior and exterior acts. It perfects our wills by directing them to God, but it begins through the operations of our intellects, as we ponder and pay homage to God’s greatness, and it ends in outward actions, directly in our acts of worship to God, and indirectly in the good deeds we perform for our neighbors, as God would have us do. The virtue of religion itself, we might well say, declares itself “both spiritual and religious!”
Interior acts of religion include devotion and prayer. Devotion implies that we have “vowed” ourselves to God and dedicated our heart to live for Him. Prayer is the other essential interior act of religion, and we’ll look at prayer in the light of St. Thomas’s wisdom in our next section.
As for the external acts of religion, St. Thomas addresses in depth a variety of actions, including adoration, sacrifice, oblations and first fruits, tithes, oaths, and vows. We’ll shed Thomas’s light on these external acts in this chapter’s last section, on the rite of the sacrament that perfects all of religion’s interior and exterior acts.
Before we finish our virtue section for this life lesson, I’d not be surprised at all if at least one reader has scratched his or her venerable head, wondering when I’m going to get to how the theological virtue of faith relates to religion and the life lesson of this chapter. Well, good question (and well-warranted head scratch)! Thomas addressed the question of religion’s relationship to faith in the fifth article of II-II, 81: “Whether Religion Is a Theological Virtue.” His answer was no, and therein he explained how religion is a moral virtue that is guided by the even higher, God-infused theological virtue of faith, as well as hope and charity. Citing St. Augustine, he notes that “God is worshipped by faith, hope, and charity.” Thomas notes that religion directs the acts that serve as the means directed toward the end of worshipping and showing reverence to God, while faith, hope, and charity directly serve the end of worshipping God by commanding those acts of religion. In another comparison of religion and faith in the same article, Thomas explains how supernatural faith transcends the limits of the moral virtue of religion:
And yet the acts whereby God is worshipped do not reach out to God himself, as when we believe God we reach out to Him by believing; for which reason it was stated (Q. 1, 1, 2, 4) that God is the object of faith, not only because we believe in a God, but because we believe God. (emphasis added)
Note well the subtlety of that last line. The virtue of faith does indeed go further than religion alone in providing an intimate, supernatural, personal relationship with God. We will examine it more thoroughly when we come to our last chapter, on the Person to whom faith, like religion, binds us, in the most glorious ways.
The Ultimate Place for Prayer
If your concept of prayer is a little vague or fuzzy, it won’t be if you ever open the Summa Theologica itself and ponder the seventeen articles the Angelic Doctor devotes to the subject in II-II, 83. You will learn, for example, whether we should pray only directly to God, whether we should ask for specific things, and if so, if these include temporal or worldly things, why we should pray for others and for our enemies, why the seven petitions of the Lord’s Prayer are “perfect,” whether prayer is proper for a “rational being” (listen up, any modern thinkers who hold to the “science versus religion” false dichotomy!), whether we should pray out loud, whether we must pay attention while we pray (not always!), whether God hears the prayers of sinners, and whether the proper parts of prayer are supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings.
Whew! There’s quite a science to prayer, you see, and the Angelic Doctor is the master scientist. As usual, part of the reason St. Thomas knew so much was that he studied so extensively the great Fathers and Doctors before him. Just for a small sample of highlights: on prayers for others, which we have already seen in the context of other life lessons, he quotes the great Eastern Doctor St. John Chrysostom, who noted that prayer for ourselves comes from necessity, and prayer for others from fraternal (brotherly) charity, and “the prayer that comes from fraternal charity is sweeter to God than that which comes out of necessity.” Further, as St. Isidore pointed out so wisely, “We say ‘Our Father’ and not ‘My Father,’ ‘Give us’ and not ‘Give me.’ ”
Now, I’d like to ask if you can think of a place where we find virtually all of the most fundamental and powerful traditional prayers of the entire Church together in the same place? (I’m thinking of prayers such as the Our Father, the Hail Mary, the Creed, and the Glory Be.) If you thought of the Rosary, you are certainly correct, but in our next section, following Thomas’s lead, I’d like to emphasize another special place where all these prayers can also be found as a part of the greatest prayer of all. So now we turn to the greatest of all prayers and to the rite of the greatest of all sacraments, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.88
Celebrating the Highest Sacrament of All
Mass attendance is of extreme importance because there we find Christ present in a more real, profound, and mysterious way than He can be found anywhere else on earth. While we will delve into Thomas’s marvelous insights on the sacrament of the Eucharist in particular in chapter 12, here we will take a whirlwind tour of Thomas’s primer on the Mass in the six articles of the Summa Theologica, part III, question 83: “Of the Rite of This Sacrament.” Thomas will make crystal clear why we should go to Mass, and not merely to the woods, every Sunday.
Before we begin, let’s note that while this chapter’s life lesson encourages “going to” Mass, there is much more to this life lesson than that! Perhaps you have heard of the need for “active participation” in the Mass, and you do indeed need to participate, but be aware that such participation is far more than simply a matter of standing, sitting, kneeling, reciting verbal responses, or cracking open the hymnal at the right times. Christ said that we are to love God with all that we are, with “all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind” (Matt. 22:37), not just with our knees and our vocal chords! This means we should lift up our hearts to the Lord, as we are encouraged to during each Mass, that we should also engage our minds by paying attention and by studying to learn about the majesty and mystery of the Mass, and by participating not only with the presence and movements of our physical bodies, but with all the strength that our souls can muster.
Thomas has so much to offer here that I encourage every reader to dig in deep into his words. The six articles on the rite of the Mass take up fewer than fifteen pages in double column print, and even if you do not own a copy of the Summa Theologica, it is available free online.89 I will merely provide a few general highlights and details of interest in hopes of whetting your appetites for a deeper appreciation of the Mass and the importance of this chapter’s life lesson.
In the first article of III, 83, Thomas starts by highlighting an essential element of the Mass that many may not realize in our modern (and modernist) times — indeed, perhaps one reason these times are so turbulent. Far more than merely a gathering of the faithful for a special meal, the Mass is a holy sacrifice of Christ. Citing St. Augustine, we find: “Christ was sacrificed once in Himself, and yet He is sacrificed daily in the Sacrament.” In the Mass, we employ the words and gestures Christ used in establishing this sacrament at the Last Supper, but “this sacrament is an image representing Christ’s Passion, which is His true sacrifice.” Further, “by this sacrament, we are made partakers of the fruit of our Lord’s Passion,” and, indeed, “as the celebration of this sacrament is an image representing Christ’s Passion, so the altar is representative of the cross itself, upon which Christ was sacrificed.” If we remember that an altar is so much more than any dinner table, we will be in a much better position to give it, and the sacrifice made upon it, the ultimate reverence it deserves.
In the second article, on the time for celebrating Mass, Thomas answers some rather intriguing objections, such as the idea that since the Mass is commemorative of Christ’s Passion, why do we not celebrate it just once per year on Good Friday? Thomas provides many interesting insights in the course of his elaborate answer, and here’s one that caught my eye, regarding why Catholic priests celebrate Mass every day. Thomas begins by citing Christ’s words in Luke 11:3, “give us each day our daily bread,” and finishes with this thought from St. Augustine: “If it be a daily bread, why do you take it once a year, as the Greeks have the custom in the east? Receive it daily that it may benefit you every day.”90
Article 3 of III, 83 addresses “Whether This Sacrament Ought to Be Celebrated in a House and with Sacred Vessels,” and it is amazingly rich in insights that should increase our reverence for every house of the Lord, for every piece of furniture, every decoration, and every utensil it houses. Thomas uses the word “house” for the church, following St. Paul in his First Letter to Timothy (3:15): “You may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living God.” He then goes on to explain why churches, altars, and sacred vessels are consecrated to their special service to God. The altar is consecrated for example, because “by the altar Christ Himself is signified, of Whom the Apostle says (Heb. 13:15); Through Him we offer a sacrifice of praise to God.”
As for the sacredness of every single part of a consecrated church, note that even “the beams of a dedicated church” ought not to be used for any purpose other than for use in another church or monastery, and “on no account are they to be discarded for the works of laity.” Similar limitations are prescribed for “the altar covering, chair, candlesticks, and veil.”91 A simple take-home message I suggest from this article would be to support, however you can, the construction and reverent use, care, or restoration of beautiful churches, altars, vessels, and vestments, to show reverence for all the things used to serve God in His own household. Seek out a new, more reverent church, if necessary.
In the fourth article, Thomas addresses “Whether the Words Spoken in This Sacrament Are Properly Formed,” and this is the first of two articles in which Thomas goes through each major individual part of the rite of the Mass, one by one. Now, living in the thirteenth century, Thomas writes, of course, about the old, Latin Mass, but if you attend the new Mass, you will still see the relevance of most of his insights, showing how every part of the Mass prepares us for proper reception of and gratitude for the Eucharist.
Here is just one rather intriguing insight. One of nine objections notes that in the Consecration of this sacrament, words are used that are not attributed to Christ in the Gospel. For example, “we do not read in the Gospel, of Christ lifting up his eyes to heaven while consecrating this sacrament.” Thomas replies in the words of Scripture, noting first that in John 21:25, we are told that Christ said and did many things which are not written down by the Evangelists, but some of these have been passed down through tradition, including Christ’s lifting His eyes up to heaven at the Last Supper. Further, the Gospel does reveal that before raising Lazarus from the dead “Jesus lifted his eyes,” and in His prayer for the disciples at the Last Supper, Jesus “had more reason to do so in instituting this sacrament, as being of greater import.”
Article 5, on “Whether the Actions Performed in Celebrating This Sacrament Are Becoming,” drills down in great detail into the elaborate, ritually prescribed gestures of the priest during the Mass. I found Thomas’s twelve objections, compiled in the thirteenth century, particularly interesting since some are the same objections I have heard against the Latin Mass expressed by modernist thinkers of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries!
For example, regarding the fifty-two times the priest makes the Sign of the Cross in the Latin Mass, objection 3 holds “the ceremonies performed in the sacraments of the Church ought not to be repeated. Consequently it is not proper for the priest to repeat the sign of the cross many times over this sacrament.” Thomas responds to this one objection with nine specific, paragraph-long responses, spelling out the fascinating reasons and depths of meaning behind each allegedly perfunctory, excessively repetitive Sign of the Cross. Thomas notes that the Sign of the Cross signifies Christ’s Passion, which occurred in stages (think, for a familiar example, of the Stations of the Cross). Each series of signs of the cross represents a spiritual lesson from each stage. Allow me to highlight just a few:
Fifthly, the outstretching of Christ’s body, and the shedding of the blood, and the fruits of the Passion, are signified by the triple signification of the cross at the words, as many as shall receive the body and blood, may be filled with every blessing, etc.
Sixthly, Christ’s threefold prayer upon the cross is represented; one for His persecutors when he said, Father, forgive them; the second for deliverance from death, when He cried, My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?; the third referring to His entrance into glory, when He said, Father, into Thy hands I commend My spirit; and in order to denote these there is a triple signing with the cross made at the words, Thou dost sanctify, quicken, bless.
Seventhly, the three hours during which He hung upon the cross, that is, from the sixth to the ninth hour, are represented; in signification of which we make once more a triple sign of the cross at the words, through Him, and with Him, and in Him.
I won’t extend this chapter much further with a detailed analysis of the sixth article on possible “defects,” or problems that might occur during Mass, but I guarantee it makes for some interesting reading. Indeed, if you ever wondered what would happen if a forgetful priest said the words of consecration twice; if, due to the cold, the host slips from the priest’s hand into the chalice and he cannot break it as prescribed; or even indeed, if a spider or some other poisonous creature fell into the chalice after the Consecration, rest assured that Thomas has supplied the answers!92
To sum things up for this chapter, if you take the time to learn more about the Mass, if you seek out the most reverent Mass you can find, prepare for it with prayer, and put on your Sunday best, your weekly “obligation” will become a most glorious and fruitful privilege as well.
At the beginning of the traditional Mass, the priest, acting in the person of Christ, echoes the words of King David: “Introibo ad altare Dei” (I will go in to the altar of God). The servers respond: “Ad Deum qui laetificat juventutem meam” (To God, who giveth joy to my youth”).93 Never forget that, every Sunday, your time contemplating the sacrifice of God’s altar can rejuvenate you and bring you a joy that those who are merely “spiritual but not religious” can never fully experience or understand.
Life Lesson 9 Summa
God Himself has called us to be religious, and not merely spiritual. He gave us the first three commandments so our worship would be centered solely on Him, binding us to Him, who gives us all that we have and are. We are called to battle spiritual sloth and ignorance and to grow in the knowledge and the practice of the interior and exterior acts of religion, as guided by faith, hope, and charity. We should pray every day to God in thanks for all that He has given us, and at least once a week, we must gather in a church and pray with the Church the greatest of all prayers: the Mass, the holy vehicle in which God Himself comes into our hearts and souls in the most intimate way, exceeding even His presence, essence, and power present in the woods and throughout creation.
83 From St. Albert’s Commentary on St. Matthew, as cited by Paul Murray, The New Wine of Dominican Spirituality: A Drink Called Happiness (New York: Burns and Oates, 2006), 93.
84 In unusual circumstances, Mass can be offered outside of a Church, including open-air services, but this is clearly the exception, and not the rule. (Thomas, who seems to address just about everything, addresses this in III, 83, 3.)
85 See I, 2, 3 for his brief summary of five ways God’s existence can be proven through reason.
86 In the words of twentieth-century Thomist philosopher Etienne Gilson on the relationship between faith, reason, God’s revelation, and the science of theology as a whole: “The theology of the Christian Doctors is only revelation investigated by reason working in the light of faith” The Christian Philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1994), 94.
87 See Gen. 20:2–17, Deut. 5:6–21, and the CCC table between 2051 and 2052 for lists of the Ten Commandments.
88 I should note that while the Hail Mary is not said as a part of the Mass, it is prayed by the priest and the congregation three times while kneeling as a part of a series of prayers that follow the end of the Low Mass of the Traditional Latin or Extraordinary Form. Also, the Glory Be, not to be confused with the Gloria, is not found in the Novus Ordo Mass, but it is in the Extraordinary Latin form.
89 Indeed, here is a direct link to III, 83: http://www.newadvent.org/summa/4083.htm.
90 Of course, we are obligated to attend Mass weekly, but more frequent or even daily attendance, if possible, provides yet more spiritual benefits, since, as we saw when addressing III, 83, 1, in each Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, “we are made partakers of the fruit of our Lord’s Passion.” Every Mass bears spiritual fruits for those who choose to receive and enjoy them!
91 As I read Thomas’s words, I recall seeing for many years the magnificent hanging lights and pews of the once beautiful demolished church of my childhood inside a local upscale shopping mall before it closed its doors. The new church had no need for the lights, since they would be replaced by recessed pot lights, pretty much like the kind we have in our informal family room.
92 I won’t keep you in total suspense, at least in regard to the poisoned chalice. Thomas explains that the creature should be removed, the chalice cleaned, and new wine consecrated. (Makes sense to me!)
93 The priest and servers then pray the Judica Me (Judge me), based on Psalm 43 (42). See also Ps. 103 (102):5, regarding God “who satisfies you with good as long as you live so that your youth is renewed like the eagles.”